Lockhaven wrote:@Sooty25
A busy beach with swimmers, to me, means he should have ditched further offshore to be clear of them.
Here is a video showing the engine producing smoke much further out to sea, maybe like all of us would do he was trying make land while what sounded like the engine was still producing power only to find it failing completely close to shore, and only then discovering many people on the beach closer in, at which point there wouldn't be many options left for manoeuvring.
In this video you can see what seems to be the pilot pulling up slightly to avoid people in the water before ditching further down the beach line.
It has now been dragged out the sea, I don't think it will be flying again anytime soon as it looks to have been fairly badly damaged probably by the waves.
Hmmm Video one audio is very interesting to my ears but nobody seems to have made any attempted analysis in depth...I have seen and heard theses Avengers in the past so as she approach from afar the cyclone sounds happy enough then there is a little smoke which I don't think is necessaryily abnormal amount for certain power settings/load for an old big piston BUT then listen carefully there is a momentary and RAPID increase in engine revs (quicker than I've ever heard an engine throttle up by hand ..) followed immediately by an un characteristic and extreme prop howl (I am not surecthe avenger prop should be making a supersonic howl if at all and especially one so extreme - this all points to my conjecturing that the pitch mechanism on the prop has failed to fine pitch.. he then not unsurprisingly throttle back heavily as he flys past which is visibly rotating slower. The engine sound prior to ditching don't sound that bad to me and no smoke ...so again it could be a prop issue
But your conclusions may differ